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According to EA, Dead Space 3 will not be patched to close up any resource farming exploits.

Earlier I wrote about a resources exploit in Dead Space 3 that allowed players to circumvent the need to utilize real money, though it still requires some tedious grinding. We talked about cheating, we talked about the possible "legal gray area" of this sort of thing.

EA has clarified their stance on this with me via email, and I think they're on pretty much the right page with this:

"The resource-earning mechanic in Dead Space 3 is not a glitch," an EA spokesperson told me. "We have no plans to issue a patch to change this aspect of the game. We encourage players to explore the game and discover the areas where resources respawn for free. We’ve deliberately designed Dead Space 3 to allow players to harvest resources by playing through the game. For those that wish to accumulate upgrades instantly, we have enabled an optional system for them to buy the resources at a minimal cost ($1-$3)."

So that's that. EA is going to let the resource farming slide. Players will still be able to buy items to get ahead, but the game itself will remain as-is.

I still find myself a bit wary of including micro-transactions in this sort of game. They feel a lot like paying for cheats---something that many freemium-style games feel like, and Dead Space 3 isn't even free-to-play.

I think back to the old days, playing Super Mario, and imagine if I could just buy an extra life pack from Nintendo, or a Star pack that gave me invincibility whenever I needed it to get ahead, or any sort of advantage that enabled me to beat the game without trying so hard.

There's nothing really wrong with it---after all, I can just ignore the option entirely---but I still can't wash away the sense that it's all a bit unsportsmanlike, very much in the same way I think cheating is unsportsmanlike.